Tinkering with OpenSCAD…

It seems like I might have access to a 3D printer, so I thought it might be fun to see what I could design. I thought using OpenSCAD, a scripting based 3D modelling software that can generate models in STL, a fairly simple but flexible format that can be printed by lots of printers. I had never used it before, but I am fairly comfortable with the ideas, so I thought I’d try a simple project: designing a 6″ (150mm diameter) wheel for a robotics project that I’m working on. It’s not really meant to be serious for construction (it is solid and uses way too much material) but it was a modest first attempt. Here’s the program I came up with in 20-30 minutes.

module dumbwheel() {
	difference() {
		union() {
			difference () {
				cylinder(h=25, r=75, center=true, $fn=200) ;
				cylinder(h=35, r=50, center=true, $fn=96) ;
			}
			rotate(a=90, v=[1, 0, 0]) {
				for (r = [0, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300]) {
					rotate (a=r, v=[0, 1, 0]) { cylinder(h=60, r=4, $fn=16) ; }
				}
			}
			cylinder(h=25, r=12, center=true, $fn=100) ;
		}
		cylinder(h=35, r=3, center=true, $fn=100) ;
	}
}

dumbwheel() ;

And it generated the following wheel.

simplewheel

I’ll have to think about this a bit more to generate a pragmatic wheel, but it’s not a bad start.

One thought on “Tinkering with OpenSCAD…

  1. Josh

    Nice! If you run it through MakerWare, then you can control how dense the internal volume of the solid parts is.

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